For a long time, intermittently, I have been working on my own homebrew rules set that would be loosely based on the SRD rules. During that time, it has been going by the working title of "d20a". Now at last the monster has a name, and that name is Apotheon. What is an apotheon? Simply, put, one who has achieved godhood of some kind. Seeing as how the end-game can potentially involve one or more PCs attempting to achieve this feat (at least in fantasy settings), this seems more than appropriate.

No Amnesiac Wizards: Casters remember their spells until they forget them. Or until they receive some severe head trauma. Or have them magically excised from their brains. This better fits the flavour of most fantasy fiction.

All Ability Scores Relevant: An attempt is being made to ensure that all ability scores have some relevance to all characters.

Race is not Culture: Racial abilities are separated out from cultural abilities to some extent. Characters now choose a race, a class, and a cultural origin. This origin merges aspects of d20 Modern's backgrounds and the regional feats seen in some settings.

I Hit Him Really Hard. Again.: More interesting combat options for warrior types.

Non-Grid Combat: Grid combat is an interesting mini-game, but doesn't lend itself to any situation not involving miniatures. This combat system is designed to include aspects of tactical movement, without tying players into a rigid grid. This also allows for a more immersive combat experience, rather than a tacticians analytical view of combat.

Multi-Genre: This game engine is designed to include the necessary mechanical hooks to allow for any kind of genre to be played.

I have moved all the old d20a topics to this board. However, in most cases, they should not be taken as my current thoughts on their respective topics.

Emma Rome, otherwise known as Ashtagon
Overall site admin for The Piazza. My moderator colour is pink!

* The soldier class table is in dire need of fixing. This is very much related to the fact that the forum's table markup code is barely usable. This is, however, purely a presentation issue.
* The soldier's Craft skills have since been superseded by changes in how Craft skills work. Instead of having Craft as a class skill, he now has a class ability (Armoury), which allows him to use his class level instead of his relevant Craft skill when working on weapons and armour with which he is proficient. Much more elegant than forcing him to spend skill points on Craft.
* Some of the martial prowess abilities are no longer relevant or need reworking thanks to the gridless combat system being designed. Notably, reach and attacks of opportunity are going away.
* The priest class still needs to have the magic system tacked on to it. I never did get round to working on that before. Maybe with more time...
* Some of the weapon proficiency families have been changed around a little.
* I definitely want a mechanic in there to make priests more powerful when they have a congregation present. Community is teh key aspect that separates out priests from wizards.
* I have decided to drop the barbarian class from the list. SRD barbarians are berserkers who can smash traps. Most barbarian 'fixes' tend to overlap on either the fighter or the ranger, or else involve some kind of totem animal mysticism. The rage feature will be a feat easily accessible to both fighters and rangers. The "animal channelling" concepts are a school of magic, probably one for druids (or their analogues).
* Final list of classes is looking like this:

Fighter: The original combat monster. He hits things. Really hard.

Ranger: An outdoorsy ranged weapon specialist.

Rogue: A finesse warrior, a master of stealth.

Templar: Basically, a paladin, except without the lawful stupid.

Mystic: Combines aspects of monk and ninja.

Aristocrat: Combines aspects of bard and various 'noble' classes, but non-magical.

Priest: Cleric.

Wizard: What it says on the tin.

How 3e tropes fit into the scheme:

* 3e bards are multi-class aristocrats / marble college wizards.
* 3e druids are overpowered. They can play as amber college wizards, jade college wizards, rangers, priests of a nature deity, or some combination of the four.
* 3e duskblade/hexblade is a fighter/wizard.

Emma Rome, otherwise known as Ashtagon
Overall site admin for The Piazza. My moderator colour is pink!

Ashtagon wrote:* The soldier class table is in dire need of fixing. This is very much related to the fact that the forum's table markup code is barely usable. This is, however, purely a presentation issue.

Tables are definitely a problem.

I wonder if someone could locate a table to image generator (where you throw data into boxes and press a button to create a JPG). This would let people knock up JPG files, save them on flickr and then link to them from posts. Mind you, the forum image size limits would probably then kill longer tables.

Ashtagon wrote:Now at last the monster has a name, and that name is Apotheon. What is an apotheon? Simply, put, one who has achieved godhood of some kind. Seeing as how the end-game can potentially involve one or more PCs attempting to achieve this feat (at least in fantasy settings), this seems more than appropriate.

Does this mean you're going to convert and include the Immortals rules?

Ashtagon wrote:Now at last the monster has a name, and that name is Apotheon. What is an apotheon? Simply, put, one who has achieved godhood of some kind. Seeing as how the end-game can potentially involve one or more PCs attempting to achieve this feat (at least in fantasy settings), this seems more than appropriate.

Does this mean you're going to convert and include the Immortals rules?

Now that is an interesting idea.

I know that the ESD Conversion Agreement would allow for the entire BECMI system to be converted to 3rd edition rules. Things like the immortals rules would also be reproducable under the same sort of legal conditions that Dark Dungons uses.

(I do find the BECMI concept of dividing the game up into 5 tiers interesting. It seems similar to the way that 3e added stuff about 20th level in the Epic Handbook. You could argue that 3e repeated the original BX concept with a PHB/Epic concept. Going post-epic and adding in the process of acending to godhood could add in a third tier and you could easily split up the PHB-level part of the SRD into the standard classes and the higher levels where you can take on a Prestige Class.)

Actually, I have no plans at all for creating rules for playing immortals or gods. There are several reason. I'm not convinced the basic game engine can actually stretch that far in terms of simple combat. The social challenges that could be faced aren't conceptually all that different from a political arena campaign (except with rival gods instead of rival kings). Making such powerful entities playable will de-mystify them for lesser mortals, and anything challenging enough to be meaningful at that level will make the whole concept of the word "god" meaningless. Finally, I actually think playing a weak character creates the best role-playing opportunities.

Bottom line is, ascending to godhood is the end of game "win" scenario. Roll up a new character. In Apotheon, gods kill 1d6 PCs per round (no save).

Emma Rome, otherwise known as Ashtagon
Overall site admin for The Piazza. My moderator colour is pink!